HOUSTON

Fair Play
Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing, the Houstonians known as the Art Guys, are conceptual artists of the highest order. Some of their recent projects include marrying a tree at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and running continuously around an intersection as part of the monthly “12 Events” series commemorating their thirty years of collaboration.

While the men are known for performance art, they also create works that collectors can actually put on display. In fact, the Art Guys have so much that they are hosting the Art Guys Art Fair to sell directly to buyers some of their excess offbeat investigations. The one hundred or so items—including one that goes for $1 million—include “The Catastrophe Theory of Musical Criminality,” a 1984 recording of a train crushing a microphone placed on the tracks. “There are video pieces,” Massing said. “There are computer drawings. There are hand drawings. There are drawings made with fire. There are wood sculptures, a sculpture of concrete and a basketball sculpture. There are X-rays. And there are a whole bunch of collages. Contemporary art for us is everything.”

The show, though seemingly straightforward, is also a commentary on art fairs, and the absence of interaction between artist and buyer. “In the last twenty years, artists have totally given up utter control of their work to galleries and curators,” Galbreth said. “There are better ways to go about it, rather than having a broker.”
Art Guys Convention Center, September 14, 1 p.m., theartguys.com

AUSTIN

Dirty South Rap
In 1989, the rap group the Geto Boys released their sophomore album, Grip It! On That Other Level, a record that helped establish Houston as a hip-hop hub.

A young Rick Rubin, the Svengali-like producer, was enamored of their blunt, obscenity-laced depictions of street life, in songs like the horrific “Mind of a Lunatic” and the misogynistic “Gangsta of Love,” which mimicked Steve Miller’s guitar riff from “Gangster of Love.” Rubin rerecorded some of the Geto Boys’ songs—he exchanged Miller’s riff for a sample from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”—and released it as their next album, the breakout that put them on par with the Los Angeles group NWA.

The Geto Boys—Scarface, Willie D, and Bushwick Bill—will show why their raunchy Dirty South rap holds up when they perform this Friday the 13th, a perfect day for the group that wrote “Chuckie,” Bushwick Bill’s response to the slasher movie Child’s Play.
Emo’s, September 13, 10 p.m., emosaustin.com

DENTON

Giddyup
Roughly one million horses live in Texas, a fact that underlines the state’s reputation as cowboy country. A lot of pretty horses occupy the grasslands of North Texas, where ideal weather and geographical conditions make Aubrey and Pilot Point, two small towns in Denton County, conducive to year-round training and a major draw for the equine industry.

On this Saturday’s North Texas Horse Country Tour, the first of three fall tours, horse enthusiasts can view the terrain and its majestic inhabitants while aboard a luxury motor coach. They may see Thoroughbreds, Arabians, appaloosas and, of course, quarter horses, which are synonymous with Texas.

They can also learn about the area’s most famous ranches, among them Valor Farm, whose owners, Clarence and Dorothy Scharbauer, bought a yearling in Kentucky named Alysheba, who went on to win both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in 1987—two-thirds of the Triple Crown.
Denton Historical Park, September 14, 9 a.m., discoverdenton.com

DALLAS

That Last Night
During 2013, the fiftieth-anniversary year of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Dallas is hosting a variety of events and programs in an attempt to put that grim moment in its history behind it, culminating in a major ceremony on November 22 at Dealey Plaza, the site of the tragedy.

But through this weekend at the Dallas Museum of Art, you can experience perhaps the most intimate of all of those commemorations: the Hotel Texas exhibition, which features thirteen of the sixteen pieces of art displayed in the Fort Worth hotel suite where the president stayed the night before he was shot.
Dallas Museum of Art, September 13-15, dallasmuseumofart.org

AUSTIN

Silver Songs
The Americana singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams cut her teeth in Austin in the late seventies and will return there for the 25th anniversary of her seminal, self-titled album, which she will perform in its entirety—and that’s just the first set.
Stubb’s, September 14, 7 p.m., lucindawilliams.com

FORT WORTH

Cautionary Tale
“Mexico Inside Out: Themes in Art Since 1990,” an exhibition of sixty works by 23 artists commenting on Mexico’s recent history of violence, corruption and poverty, is a forceful reminder not to let history repeat itself.
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, September 15-January 5, themodern.org